My dog has serious food allergies, and has now developed allergies to grass etc. After his walks, he now comes in with mild hives. So far, the daily Benadryl has been keeping them at bay.

Well we went to the lake yesterday and all hell broke loose! After 4 hours, my dog's whole body was covered in horrific, giant welts! He started to act all spooky and strange, wouldn't come near me, was really distressed and just tried to get back to the parking lot.

I started to worry about anaphalaytic shock as I had a client's dog experience this, so I rushed him to the vet. On the way, I stuffed a Benadryl into him, as that's all I had. After the antihistamine shot, it took about an hour for some of the welts to go down.

He still has about 1/2 this morning. I've realized that I've got a seriously allergic dog on my hands, which is really distressing, considering I take my dog everywhere and most of that time is doing outdoor activities.

What was supposed to be a fun day outdoors had turned into a nightmare! Before anyone suggests insect sting, mosquitos whatever, I know he doesn't react to stings because he's been stung before and there were no mosquitos anywhere. I do know it's grass/pollen because if he walks in tall grass, he comes out with hives. But I've never ever seen it like this. As he got more itchy, he tried there to rub in the grass to itch his face, and I grabbed him, then 10 minutes later, his head was one giant welt!

Does anyone have experience with serum vs skin allergy testing??? Or the alternatives to that scary prednisone for crazy allergic dogs???

I actually have done serum testing on my allergy dogs. I find it to be more far more cost effective. It's a whole lot faster too. Around here the titer test run about $150 where as dermatoligist and testing runs about $600. Testing and serum is about $300.

I was using Hydroxazine/Atarax till I found out one of the less common side effects is seizures. I thought poor Goliath had developed epilepsy, it works like a charm too. Dang it!!!

The serum was working great with him too till his allergies morphed and got waaaay worse. We retested him and it will take a while for the serum to get everything under control again.............Godddddddd I can't wait for winter.

He went in, but so did everyone else's dogs and us too! I've been there a billion times in the past with my other dogs, and it's an awesome lake to swim in.

I hear what you're saying though about the "itch", but in this case, I don't think it was that. Maybe I'd expect it from Trout Lake or Cultus, but this was Buntzen and it's clean as a whistle!

Makes me so sad because it is my tradition to go take a swim with my dog about once a week.

Honestly, he's been "hivey" all week after walking in the fields with me, so I figured this was just system overload being out in nature for that long of a day, plus rubbing on the grass too. The pollen was super bad, so I think that had a part in it too!

Hmmm...too bad it's not as simple as "the itch". I know this will sound weird, but I swear I read or heard something somewhere about smearing vaseline on the sensitive areas (belly, etc.) before going into known itch-inducers like grass - it protects the skin? I know when I was a kid and used to get the itch from swimming we smeared vaseline on our skin, which stopped it. It's worth a shot - it may help.